Again it's been forever, but I just don't like weiting in the computer room. It is hard to believe that we are still waiting for our internet connection... we are more than half way through.

So many things are happening! I went to the Traumatology department for two weeks, which was great. In the knee replacement surgery they let me examine the two removed meniscuses... I held them in my hand and liked it Funny feeling, considering the fact that I don't have my own functioning meniscus in my knee... This week I am in Dermatology, which is also interesting. But I was so fascinated by Trauma that I will go to the emergency room in the afternoons (maybe test some people with damaged knees like myself... by now I'm an expert when it comes to knees... how it feels when you tear the ACL, hurt the meniscus, tear the capsule, bruise the lower end of the thigh bone, pull the outer ligament... ) I guess I'd be a great traumatologist....

Yesterday was an awesome day. I went to the mountains with some of my spanish friends and we rented canoes to paddle down a big river that leads to the ocean! We had great sunny weather and a gorgeous view on the mountains. We wore wet suits, so it absolutely didn't matter to get splashed or even fall in the water (which happened, for in some places the river got a little wild with rocks in the water. When we tried to evade them we hit a tree that hung very closely over the water. But it was tons of fun I really love the mountains here, I think I never spent so much time in the mountains (except for maybe snowboarding) hiking and all kinds of other activities. A while ago I went with my spanish friend Alba and we rented horses to do a tour in the mountains. That was also one of the coolest things ever, especially since I love horseback riding and haven't done it in more than two years (which explains the agony I felt in my butt over the following four days...). Awesome! But at some points it got also a little scary, riding close to the edge or close to the rocks, but the horses are pretty good at it.

Well everybody went to the movies to see spiderman. Initially I wanted to go (even though I wouldn't like Tobey Maguires dubbed voice in spanish). But when we got there we found out that the movie will start at ten and is two and a half hours long and I changed my mind. I was tired all weekend and today and never seem to be able to get the sleep I need. Plus I have to be in Dermaology tomorrow at eight. No way, I'm going to bed tonight!

i just finished in the hospital, this week in Traumatology... interesting, tomorrow I will see the surgery of a knee prosthesis... Let's see if it scares me

Right now I'm in the faculty computer room killing some time as I am waiting for a friend to go have lunch with her. I just went to the library and was shocked. How horrible, no wonder spanish students study without books. They don't have any nice ones... Are we spoiled in Germany? I don't know, I always enjoyed studying, because the books are great very colorful, lots of fotos, examples that are very descriptive... Here: you open the book, black and white all text, almost no pictures. How can you study with something like that? I took one with me to find out how it's written, even though I don't really feel like reading it. The thing is I think, that these books are for specialists, meaning that you read them when you are doing your residency. Students here don't really learn much, they just go to classes, write down what the professor says, studt only that and have exms only about what they heard in class. All the residents here are very helpless, they never exmamined a patient by themselves during the studies. that's why here the doctors talk more to the resident than to the students, because they are needier (since they are supposed to work..). It's really weird. When you pass your final exam in Germany or in the US, you are a doctor and you are responible. Here nobody leaves a resident alone, residents don't have night shifts alone or anything, that would be a catastrophe....

One of these rare moments in which the internet works in my room, so I'm taking advantage. I got a call from the company that we made the contract with and was informed that they will send us the router within the next 25 days... it's a joke. We're half way through with our stay here... whatever.

So much has happened in the last two weeks that I don't know where to start. Hannah and I had a blast in Madrid. We also went to the Ballett and to a Flamenco night with lots of Sangría. Now we would love to go to the South of Spain

We got back to Oviedo almost safely, because the bus almost fell down a canyon while we crossed he mountains. Those seconds were some of the most frightening in my life. We came out of the tunnel and it was raining like crazy. In front of us was a truck, at least for a moment, because in the next -everything went so fast- something hit the bus and I looked instinctively out of the window and saw the truck sliding rapidly down the steep slope losing all konds of parts that went flying around. It was falling apart! Something hit the bus in the front, breaking the windshield and then another part on the side and the bus started slipping from one side of the road to the other: mountain, slope, mountain, slope, uncontrollably. I just grasped Hannahs arm and kept saying something like. it'll be fine... until the bus finally stopped at the side.. I guess it was fine. Normally in a situation like that I expected every body to scream, but everybody was just holding their breath, like me. We got home late, but we survived... I have no idea what happened to the truck.

Other than that everything was less exciting. I had to go back to the hospital last week, but it's still fun. i was in the Ophtalmology ward and got to see some cool things. I always thought the eye was boring, but it's actually really intersting and as an eye doctor you get to perform little surgeries. I like the idea of operating but not being a surgeon. What was awesome, was that they lat me asist during an eyelid-tumor surgery and I got to do the stitches in the end. Considering they don't let you do much in Spain in the hospitals, that was a really big thing. So I put a big proud smile on my face for the rest of the day.

I also had my first Salsa class lat week and I loved it. I never thought dancing was for me, but I really enjoyed it. I went with another Erasmus student, Lorenzo from Italy, but I guess he didn't like it that much. it was a two hour class and afterwards we went to a Salsa club to dance some more and wound up getting home at four... when that day unfortunatel I had to get up at seven to go to the hospital. But it was worth it, even though that day was somewhat tough not to fall asleep, especially during staff meeting...

The bad part is that I think I won't be able to go to the classes anymore, because it hurts my knee too much. It's still not healed after my surgery three month ago and with dancing you twist and twirl a lot and it just doesn't do any good. It's not because it hurts so much I can't stand it: I am actually being reasonable. It's limiting me so much in my daily life and I know it won't be better if I don't let it heal right. this is the first time I notice that there are limits. For me it's really weird and I don't know the feeling. It's making me sad and angry and I have to deal with it. I'm just used to doing what I feel like doing, I never felt that there could be anything keeping me from doing it. It's a painful realization that bothers me a lot. And no handball. So wierd. I have never gone such a long period without it, it's always been part of my life and I miss it, even though it's the cause for all the misery...

I shouldn't be talking like this. now I have to laugh at myself "All the misery"... well, everybody gets these moments...

I think I need to go to bed early tonight, since yesterday was late again and I shouldn't be accumulating lack of sleep to much

We had an exhausting day yesterday, but it was great! We met a canadian guy in the hostel who went with us to spent the day, so we went into the art museum 'Reina Sofía', where we spent a total of four hours... Museums are really strenuous in my opinon, but this one was just fantastic. We looked at art works by Picasso and Salvador Dalí, which I found really impressing.

Afterwards we had dinner in the sun in a little restaurant in front of the museum. We had bread with fresh seafood... then we went top the train station in Madrid, because they have a little artificial rain forest in there, with lots of water and turtles. They are sooo cute. I have never been in a cooler train station!

Well and now comes an unbelievable thing: hannah and I ended up in the opera in Madrid. I was joking and asked her if she would like to go in... so we went inside and I asked for informaton. Then I was told, that it is an hour and a half before the show and if Hannah and I are under 26 years old, we get 90% off the price. So instead of 150 Euros we payed only 15... so we went and saw our first opera 'la pietra del paragone' by Rossini... it was amazing and three hours long...

Hannah is here! She arrived on Friday after a lot of incidences... When she landed in the city Santander, they didn't have any free seats in the buses that go to Oviedo, only around seven in the evening and she landed at one. The bus woud have taken three hours to get to Oviedo too, when the car drive takes only an hour and a half, so I had to think of something. I called a german friend who is in Spain with her car to ask her if she could go to the airport with me to pick up Hannah. She was really cool and told me she would organize something and call me back in five minutes. When she called back she said: 'Don't worry, my boyfriend is on his way from Germany with his car (he had already been traveling for two days!) and just passed by Santander. He will turn around and pick up your sister and bring her here!' What a great coincidence that was... and finally she arrived at six thirty completely worn out. And I dragged her to a party that night... and everybody talked to her in spanish, which was a nice challenge too. Now she is interested again in freshing up her spanish a little and takes her two weeks here as a chance to practice...

But I also had a nice surprise for her: bus tickets and three nights in a hostel in Madrid! And that's where we are right now. We just arrived. The bus took almost six hours, then we took the metro to get to the hostel 'los amigos' which we found really easily. After relaxing a little and writing some e-mail, we'll go on our first walk around the city. Weather is awesome compared to al the freaking rain in Oviedo! We also had a little problem this morning and almost missed our bus: it was really early and thus pitch dark outside when we got up and left. Clumsy Hannah poudered the kitchen with cappuccino and I didn't want to leave a great mess behind when Kirsten and Jo come back tomoorow night from Barcelona. I got the vacuum cleaner and when I plugged it in the fuse blew (which happens sometime if too many lights are turned on and more than one device at the same time. I had forgotten that the laptop was turned on). I went to the fuse box to fix the problem, but it wouldn't work. There was no way I could repair it, plus we weren't all finished packing and were in the middle of the process of making breakfast. Now we couldn't see anything at all!!!! We had to do everything in the absolute dar! I found two little candles in the dark which helped a little, but not much. Now the mess in the appartment is unbelievable. I don't want to know what the kitchen looks like... We almost missed our bus either. It was raining like hell, so I wanted to call a cab, but the call wouldn't come through, I have no idea why. So we had to run through the rain and finally made it. Now I have to try to contact the landlord, so he can fix that problem before Kirsten and Jo come home tomorrow night and break their necks in the dark... what a pain all this can be sometimes...

Now we are gonna get ready for the big city and enjoy our day!!! Tonight we are gonna meet with a spanisch friend of mine who is visiting her parents. The paln is to go and watch a Jazz concert...

New blog address, the other one turned out to cause too many problems!

Here I am finally writing again and so much has happened! I just got back yesterday night from a great trip to Barcelona. Erika and I took a plane to go there Saturday morning and flew back last night, so we had almost four days in the city. The first two nights we stayed with a spanish girl, Catalina, that I met on one of our hiking trips here in Asturias. She is such a sweetheart and we got a long perfectly right away. When I told her that I was ganna go to Barcelona with my firnd Erika, she told me that she has an appartment in he middle of the city (she used to stuy there, six years of architecture. She is already done and works and lives in Oviedo). She was really enthousiasted and told me that she goes back to Barcelona at least once a month to see her friends, so she offered to come with us that weekend and show us the city. It was awesome! She knows the city so well, so she could tell us exactly what was worth seeing... unfortunately we didn't have typical barcelona weather with tons of sunshine and high temperature, but luckily no rain like in Oviedo. Erika had so much bad luck with this during her visit! The first week in Asturias (again, that's the province up north where Oviedo is) there was only rain and it was freezing cold... A lot of people that I know here were really sick with colds and he flu. And now listen to this: I, who always brags never to become sick, never to catch a cold, got so so sick... with running nose, sore throat + voice loss and the meanest cough you can have!!! The last time I was so sick was pobably when I was six years old, maybe! So yes, my activities last week were limited to those of lying in bed or the couch, depending on the time of the day. Kirsten had two friends visiting, too, so they did all kinds of things in the rain, like going to the coast or the mountains. I believe they had fun in the wind and the rain. I enjoyed myself, reading, coughing, sleeping, coughing, watching movies on the PC and coughing. I really dreaded not being able to go to Barcelona, but when Saturday came I felt somewhat better and so I went. I got better and better in Barcelona, but Erika started to feel bad and finally got really sick. Now being back here, i am starting to get worse again. Erika left this morning to go back to Germany and I am sitting here with a headache and a sor throat, yet agsin. I call it the 'Asturian Cold', which is very vicous and persistent. It even affects me...twice...